Eddy's Good News: Heroism from Canada and coffee grounds tackling agricultural problems

Virgin Radio

3 Apr 2024, 16:17

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio Anthems, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!

Be sure to listen each day between 2pm and 6pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below:

Wednesday 3rd April 2024

We all love a news pupdate, especially our canine listeners of which there are several!

Here’s a story of heroism from Edmonton in Canada and a man out for a jog with his dog who were attacked by a stray Akita. That’s a big Japanese dog bred for hunting and guarding. The attack left them both needing stitches and so he followed the dog and alerted the authorities who went looking further. 

To their astonishment they heard cries for help and found the Akita lying, exhausted next to his owner who had fallen, and unable to get up, been stuck for two days in temperatures that fell below -17. The akita had not eaten for days and must have fought off coyotes every night. The attack on the jogger wasn’t an attack, it was a cry for help. The Akita had stayed with his owner the whole time and tried to alert people to where they were. The walker was totally understanding of the situation and the Akita had been hailed a hero. I forgot to tell you his name, well I didn’t forget, I saved it till the end. His name, is ‘Hero’. 

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

A university in Brazil has come up with a brilliant way to help tackle the awful problem of agricultural runoff into our rivers. And it’s coffee grounds! 

Agricultural runoff from vegetable and grain farming is one of the largest sources of water pollution in human society. Chemicals or non natural fertilisers are spread over fields, and rains wash the excess into rivers and streams. Herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides wreck having on water life , while the excess phosphorus and nitrogen cause algal blooms in bays and estuaries, choking the life from seagrass and other species.

The study looked at bentazone—a common agricultural herbicide, and found that when coffee grounds are activated with zinc chloride they could remove 70% of the bentazone content from contaminated water. Farmers can even spread the coffee grounds on their fields and it would tackle the problem at source while also acting as a fertiliser! This is another fantastic use of a waste product which would normally just go to landfill and release greenhouse gases. I've already reported on coffee grounds being added to concrete, shoes, furniture and even entire mini houses in Colombia!

Via: goodnewsenetwork.org